1202.6650 (P. J. C. Salter et al.)

Measurement of the 18Ne(a,p_0)21Na reaction cross section in the burning
energy region for X-ray bursts    [PDF]

P. J. C. Salter, M. Aliotta, T. Davinson, H. Al Falou, A. Chen, B. Davids, B. R. Fulton, N. Galinski, D. Howell, G. Lotay, P. Machule, A. StJ. Murphy, C. Ruiz, S. Sjue, M. Taggart, P. Walden, P. J. Woods

The 18Ne(a,p)21Na reaction provides one of the main HCNO-breakout routes into the rp-process in X-ray bursts. The 18Ne(a,p_0)21Na reaction cross section has been measured for the first time in the Gamow energy region for peak temperatures T=2GK using the time-reversal approach in inverse kinematics. The astrophysical rate for ground-state to ground-state transitions was found to be a factor of 2 lower than Hauser-Feshbach theoretical predictions. Our reduced rate will affect the physical conditions under which breakout from the HCNO cycles occurs via the 18Ne(a,p)21Na reaction.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6650